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Remove and Replace? You Are Still Left With the Same False Church

As I have noted in several recent commentaries, it is very painful and tremendously distasteful to write about Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the counterfeit church of conciliarism he heads. The conciliar enterprise is founded on heresy and has produced apostasy, sacrilege, blasphemy and a vast wreckage of souls in its tumultuous wake.

While it is completely understandable that much attention continues to be given to the rot of the conciliar sect’s worldwide criminal conspiracy to recruit, promote and protect sodomites as seminarians, presbyters and “bishops” even after being named as practitioners of abuse, I continue to find it nothing other than stupefying that even many well-meaning Catholics in the conciliar structures can continue to believe that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the Catholic Church and that “bishops” and other factotums who work in chancery offices or in the nest of sodomy that is the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River are in fact validly ordained clergy who are members of the Catholic Church.

Some are convinced, it would appear, that it is necessary to work to remove the faux prelates who have been indemnifiers of monstrous clerical abuses. This is certainly understandable, and candor compels me to concede once again that I held this belief and acted upon it for far, far too long. “If only the pope knew,” I told myself and others over and over again, “then we could get some really good bishops.” Referring only to myself and not to anyone else, please, I was an idiot for believing that a man, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, who embraced and propagated publicly various heresies and errors and who engaged in a panoply of unprecedented “papal” extravaganza liturgical sacrileges, had any desire to remove “bad” “bishops” to replace them with good ones.

“Saint John Paul II” appointed a number of moral no-goodniks—and he kept them in their positions even after he had been presented with incontrovertible evidence about their moral crimes. Most infamously, of course, was the Polish Phenomenologist’s adamant and stubborn protection of the lecherous reprobate, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, who lavished the fourth in the current line of antipopes with cash gifts, mostly through intermediaries, thus predisposing the “sainted” non-pope to reject or ignore first-hand evidence presented to him about Degollado’s decadence (sodomite abuse of seminarians and presbyters, fathering of six children, two of whom he abused, with various women) and his cult-like control of the members of the Legion of Christ (see Unimaginable Deceit and Duplicity).

Although Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI began to clamp down on Father Marcial Maciel Degollado in 2005, he did nothing to sanction Theodore Edgar McCarrick other than to order him in 2011 to avoid speaking in public on behalf of what is purported to be the Catholic Church, an order, if actually given, that was never enforced as McCarrick appeared in public all the time and was even bestowed with a “papal” award that he, Ratzinger/Benedict, had approved after the supposed sanction has been imposed. Ratzinger/Benedict also took no effective action against the Irish “bishops” following the release of the Murphy Commission’s report in 2010, prompting me to write the following at the time:

Although there are "conservative" "bishops" in the conciliar structures who have indeed attempted to maintain some sense of the horror of personal sin even though they endorse explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in full violation of Pope Pius XI's prohibition of said instruction, it is not at all uncommon for conciliar 'bishops" to lack any sense of the horror of sin, including sins against nature, and this is precisely the result of four decades of the conciliar ethos at work in its false liturgical rites and its false spirit that has convinced so many in the clergy and laity alike that "everyone goes to Heaven." Ratzinger/Benedict not only fails to understand this, he prescribes the conciliar documents and liturgical rites as part of the "solution" to a problem that has a good of deal of its proximate roots in the conciliar ethos itself.

Ratzinger/Benedict went to great lengths in his letter to castigate those "bishops" who protected priests/presbyters who abused children as they sought to protect their own reputations. This is, of course, accurate as far as it goes.

Ratzinger/Benedict does not explain, however, that these "bishops" have been reaffirmed time and time again by officials in the conciliar Vatican, including himself, both as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as the currently presiding conciliar "pontiff." Who gave the Irish "bishops" their "apostolic mandates"?

Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, who stocked the conciliar "episcopate" with men who were as favorably inclined to the lavender agenda as he was.

Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, who protected known abusers time and time again, including the sociopath named Father Father Marcel Maciel Dellogado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, even though a few conciliar "bishops" who were themselves protecting abusive priests/presbyters reported complaints about Maciel directly to Wojtyla/John Paul II.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. (I am not aware of any "episcopal" appointments to Ireland made by Albino Luciani/John Paul I, although there may have been some.) And how did Ratzinger/Benedict himself deal with that priest who was afflicted with perverse inclinations who had abused children in the Diocese of Essen before being transferred to his own Archdiocese of Munich and Freising? Ratzinger/Benedict is in no position to condemn others for what he has done himself.

Moreover, officials in the conciliar Vatican stonewalled members of the conciliar clergy and laity who brought their concerns to them directly in their offices in and around the Vatican itself, something that Ratzinger/Benedict nowhere mentioned in his pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, placing the blame on the Irish "bishops" for their refusal to deal adequately with "child-abusers" as he refuses to accept responsibility for failing to act on the entreaties that were made to him personally by members of the clergy and the laity from throughout the world.

Other members of the conciliar curia, including Dario Castrillon "Cardinal" Hoyos, had portfolios presented to them by prominent priests concerning the corruption of various "bishops." The late Father John A. Hardon, S.J., personally brought a presbyter-victim of the corrupt, disgraced "Bishop" Daniel Leo Ryan of Springfield, Illinois, to meet with "Cardinal" Hoyos in 1997 at a time that the latter was the "pro-prefect" of the conciliar Congregation for the Clergy. The result? Nothing. No action was undertaken against Ryan at all, who had been protected by many of his brother "bishops" in the United States of America until some of his other victims were on the verge of filing a lawsuit against him. It was only then that officials in the conciliar Vatican forced Ryan's resignation on October 14, 1999.

Another case involved in the 1990s involved a conciliar pastor who had a dossier on his diocesan "ordinary." The "ordinary" was engaged in natural vice, the pastor alleged. He had copious documentation that he brought with him, leaving copies of that documentation in every dicastery imaginable. The result? The "ordinary" is still in power.

The failure to act is not that of the conciliar "bishops" of Ireland alone.

As I have pointed out time and time again, officials in the conciliar Vatican have overseen the appointment of the "bishops" who have protected the sodomites and who have sought to browbeat the faithful. Only those who have been proved beyond any shadow of a doubt to have been personally morally corrupt and abusive have been removed. The rest, including the likes of Roger "Cardinal" Mahony, whose archdiocese has had to pay out close to $1 billion in settlement monies to victims of perverted priests and presbyters, are being allowed to remain in power until they reach retirement age. No censure. No public penalties.

In other words, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's failure, at least thus far, to impose penalties upon the "bishops" in Ireland, apart from the resignations that have been tendered thus far, is simply par for the conciliar course. His failure to acknowledge the web of sodomite "bishops" and priests/presbyters extant in the counterfeit church of conciliarism means that he is either unwilling or unable to face reality as it is, addressing the symptoms of the root problems as he prescribes remedies such as a commitment to the conciliar documents that will only cause the problems themselves to grow in magnitude over the years. Ratzinger/Benedict has been part of the problem himself all along.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's call for Eucharistic adoration as a means to make reparation "for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm" is indeed laudable. It is a tragedy that the conciliar "rites" he praises do not make it possible for Our Lord to be truly present sacramentally in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo service. Moreover, it is also tragic that the false "pontiff," although asking the "Blessed Virgin Mary [to] protect and guide each of you to a closer union with her Son, crucified and risen," once again refuses to exhort Catholics to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. This is a very notable feature of his false "pontificate." Ratzinger/Benedict almost never makes any exhortation to Catholics to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, a tragic commentary on state of his heart and soul that cannot accept the Rosary as the chief weapon after Holy Mass and Eucharistic adoration to fight the evils in the world today.

Alas, when all is said and done, my very few readers, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's decision to focus on the abusive behavior of priests and presbyters (and the arrogant actions of the conciliar 'bishops" who have been indemnified by Rome time and time again, most of whom will remain in power for years to come a la Roger Mahony and Tod Brown and Robert Brom and Francis George and Howard Hubbard and Matthew Clark and William Skylstad and Richard Lennon and Thomas Daily and William Murphy and John McCormack, et al.; some might even be promoted to Rome itself after the honors accorded Bernard "Cardinal" Law, who is still the archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore) rather than upon the homosexual-friendly culture that exists universally conciliar structures means that the false "pontiff" is either in denial or that he is attempting to fool Catholics by addressing symptoms with half-measures while refusing to focus at all on the underlying rot of conciliarism itself that is responsible for serving as an important enabling factor in scandalizing Catholics and non-Catholics alike worldwide by the promotion or the minimizing of perverse sins against nature. (From Always Evading Root Causes.)

This all applies doubly and triply to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who, it should be remembered, authorized the notorious “Father” James Martin, S.J., to speak at the so-called “World Meeting of Families” that took place six months ago in Ireland, a country whose voters voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland that, effectively, opened the way for the nation’s parliament, Oireachtas, to decriminalize the surgical execution of the innocent preborn (see By Their Fruits, part two). There was a specific program during this “meeting” to enable so-called LGBTQ “ministries” and to help families with children who are afflicted with the scourge of perverse proclivities and identify themselves thereby.

While it is a good and even necessary act of true Catholic charity to bring the wicked, perverse deeds of various conciliar “bishops” to light, does anyone really think that Jorge Mario Bergoglio would replace evildoers in his hierarchy with men who possess what neither he nor any of his “bishops” possesseth, namely, the Catholic Faith in its entirety?

Mind you, clerical malefactors must be brought to the bar of civil justice and their victims compensated monetarily for the harm done to them. Such a pursuit of justice is not vengeful. Indeed, it is a duty imposed upon those who have the time, the means and the ability to have justice done for those who have been victimized and then intimidated by the conciliar “bishops” and the lawyers for their insurance companies. Such legal and monetary reckonings might help one or two of the conciliar no-goodniks to have a real conversion of heart before they meet Christ the King at their Particular Judgment. This is all conceded right readily as I pray sincerely for the success of the efforts of those who are seeking to pursue civil justice against the clerical malefactors, their dioceses and their insurance companies as well as to bring to public light the crimes that commit in the darkness with their truly darkened intellects and blackened hearts.

Nonetheless, however, truth must be our sole guide, and the truth is that, as Saint Robert Bellarmine himself noted, Either the Faith is Had Entirely, Or It is Not Had At All. No “bishop” in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including those in the Eastern rites who are true bishops, possesses the Catholic Faith in its entirety, meaning that they do not possess it at all.

As I indicated in 2014 during the “extraordinary” synod of conciliar “bishops, there are No Good Guys or Bad Guys, Just Shades of Revolutionaries. The conciliar revolutionaries are divided, generally speaking, into the Jacobin/Bolshevik or the Girondist/Menshevik camps, meaning that both are committed the “Second” Vatican Council’s errors as those in the former camp contend, in essence, that everything about Catholic Faith, Worship and Morals is up for grabs while those in the latter camp are forever looking for the “proper” way to look at the teaching of the “Second” Vatican Council and the magisterium of the conciliar “popes” in light of Tradition, an exercise that will be fruitless no matter who undertakes it.

Perhaps the most serious damage that the adversary has done in the past sixty years—especially in the past fifty years since the ethos of the “Second” Vatican Council was enshrined liturgically in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service (April 3, 2019, Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent this year, is the fiftieth anniversary of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI’s Missale Romanum motu proprio that was the official promulgation of the Abomination of Desolation)—is the destruction of a true Catholic understanding of the nature of the papacy.

This destruction was first undertaken by “progressives” after Montini/Paul VI issued the revolutionary encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, that reaffirmed Catholic teaching about artificial contraception while heretically inverting the ends proper to marriage and stating that ‘psychological reasons” were grounds to justify a limitation of limit that which is proper solely to the married state during a wife’s monthly periods of infertility. The “progressives” had been preparing for their “Pope Paul” to endorse birth control and were dismayed when he did not do so explicitly, permitting only what became known as “natural family planning.” Montini/Paul VI’s ideological kinfolk on matters of the new ecclesiology, episcopal collegiality, false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State and a “preferential option for the poor” (liberation theology, viz. communism) turned on their perverted comrade and continued to make war upon the supposedly “reactionary” Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and then Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see, for example, "Joe" Hasn't Changed, Fellas and Clash Of The Conciliar Titans) before becoming the greatest and most vocal contemporary champions of “obedience to the ‘pope’” following the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio on March 13, 2013.

During this same period, of course, “conservatives”—and I was one of them, of course—tried to make veritable silk purses out of sows’ ears by “squaring the circle” and defending the indefensible, especially during the first fifteen years of Antipapa Wojtyla’s reign (although still accepting his false claim to the papacy, I began to criticize the man I thought to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter after the indult for boy altar girls was given twenty-five years ago), against the “progressives.” This was nothing other than a battle of absolute false opposites of the type that pits competing sets of naturalists against one other.

At the same time, of course, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre started to popularize the Gallicanist belief, condemned by Pope Paul VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 6, 1794, that a bishop could ignore the commands of a one who accepted as a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, thus giving birth to the “resist while recognize” movement that has infected several generations of traditionally-minded Catholics and has resulted in a total disregard of the infallible teaching of the [First] Vatican Council on the nature of the papacy and has engendered a false spirit of democratically-based criticism that makes it a blood sport to mock a man one recognizes to be Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s very Vicar on earth. Shibboleth after shibboleth has been repeated endlessly about being able to “resist” a true pope even though the truth is very simple: Catholics must be obedient to a true pope.

Our last truly canonized pope, Pope Saint Pius X explained the constituent elements of obedience to a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter in an allocution he gave to Italian priests on November 18, 1912, the Feast of the Dedication of the Churches of Saints Peter and Paul, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Apostolic Union:

Distracted with so many occupations, it is easy to forget the things that lead to perfection in priestly life; it is easy [for the priest] to delude himself and to believe that, by busying himself with the salvation of the souls of others, he consequently works for his own sanctification. Alas, let not this delusion lead you to error, because nemo dat quod nemo habet [no one gives what he does not have]; and, in order to sanctify others, it is necessary not to neglect any of the ways proposed for the sanctification of our own selves….

The Pope is the guardian of dogma and of morals; he is the custodian of the principles that make families sound, nations great, souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and of peoples; he is the head under whom no one feels tyrannized because he represents God Himself; he is the supreme father who unites in himself all that may exist that is loving, tender, divine.

It seems incredible, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are regrettably in our age in this hard, unhappy, situation of having to tell priests: love the Pope!

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, “si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

Ah, but a true pope cannot teach anything that is heretical or otherwise contrary to the Catholic Faith.

This leads to Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013, that contains contains rank heresy, which means that “Pope Francis” is not “Pope Francis” but merely a man of Argentinian birth who does not hold to the Catholic Faith in all of its holy integrity.

Here is the proof:

247. We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word.

248. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians.

249. God continues to work among the people of the Old Covenant and to bring forth treasures of wisdom which flow from their encounter with his word. For this reason, the Church also is enriched when she receives the values of Judaism. While it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples. (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013.)

"Pope Francis" chose to have this "apostolic exhortation" published in the December, 2013, edition of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Here are the three passages as found in the Italian language (not Latin, by the way!) in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis as it is published in its conciliar captivity:

If one professes belief that a particular claimant to the Throne of Saint Peter is legitimate and is indeed the Vicar of Christ on earth, a matter about which no Catholic is free to err or to profess indifference, then one must accept as binding upon his conscience and beyond all criticism even Evangelii Gaudium as part of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church without complaint, reservation or qulification of any kind.

Well, is the Mosaic Covenant still valid?

Has it never been revoked?

Catholics who think that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the pope agree with their "pope's" statement as they must "obey" the man they think is a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

Alas, Jorge Mario Bergoglio's "teaching" on the Jews is heretical, and it is in this and in so many other ways that he shows himself to be a perfect disciple of the falsehoods promulgated by the authority of his predecessors since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958. Jorge Mario Bergolio lacks the Catholic Faith, He has openly denied Catholic doctrine on this subject with great boldness. Although he style is more vulgar, visceral profane that those who have preceded him, he is, of course, merely following those before him who have denied, whether implicitly or explicitly, the Catholic truth about the Old Covenant that was summarized so clearly by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:

28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Pope Pius XII's Mystici Corporis was inserted into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis in 1943. Although it was nothing new whatsoever, Pope Pius XII reaffirmed an irreformable teaching that is part of the Sacred Deposit of Faith. The fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose to insert a contrary teaching into the Acta Apostlicae Sedis shows that he is not in perfect communion of mind and heart with his predecessors and is thus a heretic who is outside of the bosom of the Catholic Church, an imposter on the Throne of Saint Peter. Such a man is never to be obeyed as to do so is to obey the adversary himself.

Providentially, Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on the parable read at Holy Mass today, Septuagesima Sunday, concerning those called at the eleventh hour contains a reiteration of the consistent teaching of the Church Fathers that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is referring to the fact that the Old Covenant is about to give way to the New Covenant He would institute on Holy Thursday and then ratify by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross:

It is of importance that we should well understand this parable of the Gospel, and why the Church inserts this parable in to-day’s liturgy. Firstly, then, let us recall to mind on what occasion our Saviour spoke this parable, and what instruction He intended to convey by it to the Jews. He wishes to warn them of the fast approach of the day when their Law is to be give way to the Christian law; and He would prepare their minds against the jealousy and prejudice which might arise in them, at the thought that God was about to form a covenant with the Gentiles. The vineyard is the Church in several periods, from the beginning of the world to the time when God Himself dwelt among men, and former all true believers into one visible and permanent society. The morning is the time from Adam to Noah; the third hour begins with Noah and ends with Abraham; the sixth hour includes the period which elapsed between Abraham and Moses; and lastly, the ninth hour opens with the age of the prophets, and closes with the birth of the Saviour. The Messias came at the eleventh hour when the world seemed to be at the decline of its day. Mercies unprecedented were reserved for this last period, during which salvation was to be given to the Gentiles by the preaching of the apostles. It is by this mystery of mercy that our Saviour rebukes the Jewish pride. By the selfish murmurings made against the master of the house by the early labourers, our Lord signifies the indignation which the scribes and pharisees would show at the Gentiles being adopted as God’s children. Then He shows them how their jealousy would be chastised; Israel, that had laboured before us, shall be rejected for their obduracy of heart, and we Gentiles, the last comers, shall be made first, for we shall made members of that Catholic Church which is the bride of the Son of God. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Volume IV: Septuagesima, pp. 125-126.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., accepted what Jorge Mario Bergoglio rejected: the Catholic Faith in its entirety. How many “conservative” “bishops” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism believe that the Old Covenant has been abrogated? Perhaps a few. Maybe. However, none has spoken out in defense of the truth, and none has dared to called upon Jews to convert to the Holy Faith as they know that this goes about the teaching of their “popes,” something that should be a pretty clear indication that the religious sect in which they find themselves is the counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church.

Obviously like examples on every matter of doctrine on which the conciliar revolutionaries defect from the Catholic Faith could be given ad infinitum, ad nauseam. However, I have neither the time nor the desire to rewrite Antichrist Has Shown Us His Calling Card, which was published about four months ago.

No Catholic is free to dissent from anything that a true pope causes to be inserted into his Acta Apostolicae Sedis, something that was explained sixty-two years ago by the eminent theological, Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton in the American Ecclesiastical Review, a journal whose editor he was between 1943 and 1963:

Six years ago, then, Pope Pius XII was faced with a situation in which some of the men who were privileged and obligated to teach the truths of sacred theology had perverted their position and their influence and had deliberately flouted the teachings of the Holy See about the nature and the constitution of the Catholic Church. And, when he declared that it is wrong to debate a point already decided by the Holy Father after that decision has been published in his "Acta," he was taking cognizance of and condemning an existent practice. There actually were individuals who were contradicting papal teachings. They were so numerous and influential that they rendered the composition of the Humani generis necessary to counteract their activities. These individuals were continuing to propose teachings repudiated by the Sovereign Pontiff in previous pronouncements. The Holy Father, then, was compelled by these circumstances to call for the cessation of debate among theologians on subjects which had already been decided by pontifical decisions published in the "Acta."

The kind of theological teaching and writing against which the encyclical Humani generis was directed was definitely not remarkable for its scientific excellence. It was, as a matter of fact, exceptionally poor from the scientific point of view. The men who were responsible for it showed very clearly that they did not understand the basic nature and purpose of sacred theology. For the true theologian the magisterium of the Church remains, as the Humani generis says, the immediate and universal norm of truth. And the teaching set forth by Pope Pius IX in his Tuas libenter is as true today as it always has been.

But when we treat of that subjection by which all Catholic students of speculative sciences are obligated in conscience so that they bring new aids to the Church by their writings, the men of this assembly ought to realize that it is not enough for Catholic scholars to receive and venerate the above-mentioned dogmas of the Church, but [they ought also to realize] that they must submit to the doctrinal decisions issued by the Pontifical Congregations and also to those points of doctrine which are held by the common and constant agreement of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions which are so certain that, even though the opinions opposed to them cannot be called heretical, they still deserve some other theological censure.[12]

It is definitely the business of the writer in the field of sacred theology to benefit the Church by what he writes. It is likewise the duty of the teacher of this science to help the Church by his teaching. The man who uses the shoddy tricks of minimism to oppose or to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down in his "Acta" is, in the last analysis, stultifying his position as a theologian. (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)

Are there any further questions about the binding nature of what a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter places in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis?

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton denounced "the shoddy tricks of minimism to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down his his 'Acta'."

The same shoddy tricks of minimism that were being used by the likes of Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., and the "new theologians," including Father Joseph Ratzinger, in the 1950s that prompted Pope Pius XII to issue Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, have been employed for the past fifty years or more by those seeking to claim the absolutely nonexistent ability to ignore and/or refute the teaching of men they have recognized to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. I know. I contributed to that literature for a while. I was wrong. So are those who persist in their willful, stubborn rejection of the binding nature of all that is contained in the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church even though if not declared infallible in a solemn manner.

As noted just above in this commentary, the “resist while recognize” movement has done e incalculable harm to Catholic teaching on the nature of the papacy and the authority of papal teaching. A true pope must be obeyed, to be sure, and a true pope can never teach error, no less outright heresy.

Indeed, the conciliar “popes” have been responsible for attacking the nature of the papacy and for needlessly dividing believing Catholics, thus causing enmities aplenty, including estrangements among families, relatives, friends and former colleagues and acquaintances. Catholicism unites. Error divides.

Catholics must be of one mind about the Holy Faith:

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

The ethos of the “Second” Vatican Council and the magisteria of the postconcilar “popes” have destroyed Catholic unity, making open dissent from “papal” teaching and disrespect for the person of one considered to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter an institutionalized feature of the false religious sect that is Catholicism’s counterfeit ape, conciliarism. No, dissent from any teaching that a pope decides to insert into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis is not permitted. Those who believe otherwise have to reckon with the considered theological conclusions that had been reached by the Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton sixty-three years ago.

While it is understandable that believing Catholics are concerned about the recruitment, retention, promotion and protection of sodomites into the conciliar clergy and hierarchy, this is not the principal issue facing Holy Mother Church at this time. The Faith in its entirety is not had by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, its “popes,” its hierarchy and its clergy. God is being offended daily by the false doctrines of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and He is offended by the false worship at the Cranmer Tables that deifies man and celebrates the profane. The rise of the power of sodomites within the counterfeit church of conciliarism has been made possible by the rise of a false religion and its invalid liturgical rites.

Are the Ten Commandments that God revealed to Moses and that have been entrusted exclusively to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church subject to change or alteration of any type?

Can a true pope change any of those Ten Commandments?

Can a true pope change, for example, the Fifth Commandment's absolute prohibition against the direct, intentional taking of an innocent human life?

Can a true pope change the Sixth Commandment's prohibition against adultery?

Can a true pope change the Seventh Commandment's prohibition against stealing?

Can a true pope change the Eighth Commandment's prohibition against bearing false witness against thy neighbor?

Can a true pope change the Ninth Commandment to teach us that it is permissible to covet thy neighbor's wife?

Can a true pope change the Tenth Commandment to teach us that it is permissible to covet thy neighbor's goods?

What true pope has dared to enter into a mosque, taking off his shoes and assuming the Mohammedan prayer position to pray in the direction of Mecca?

What true pope has dared to venerate the Koran or the symbols of Buddhism or Jainism or Hinduism?

What true pope after Saint Peter and the subsequent destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. has dared to entered into a Talmudic synagogue and to be treated as an inferior to a rabbi as he treats this false religion as a perfectly valid means of sanctification and salvation?

"Well," some people continue to say, "he's the 'pope.' He can do whatever he wants, you know."

Really?

Can a true pope declare that there are eight persons in the Divine Godhead?

Can a true pope declare that there are many "true" religions in the world?

Can a true pope declare that one is free to believe or to disbelieve in the doctrine of Transubstantiation?

Can a true pope declare that one is free to disbelieve in the doctrine of Purgatory?

"Ah," some conciliarists might object, "a true pope would never declare such things."

Yes. Precisely. And this is why it is beyond the power of a true pope to "change" the First Commandment by placing strange gods before him by going into places of false worship and treating the ministers of false religions as having a mission from the true God of Divine Revelation to sanctify and save souls while appearing as an equal, if not an inferior, to those minister, thereby conveying in a de facto manner the impression that the "pope" is simply one true religious leader among so many others in the world.

No true pope can change the laws of God.

It is beyond the power of any human being on the face of this earth to make it "pleasing" to God to esteem the symbols of false religions, each of which is form the devil, or to term places of false worship as "sacred" or to place false religions on a level of equality with Catholic Church. To wit, what Jorge Mario Bergoglio did on February 4, 2019, in Abu Dhabi, United Emirates, should one and all that he is an agent of the devil and that his false church is a veritable synagogue of satan. (Jorge Signs Off on the One World Ecumenical Religion.)

The conciliar "popes" have attempted to tamper with the immutable precepts of the Ten Commandments over and above the gross offenses that they have given God by openly and flagrantly violating the First and Second Commandments.

The false "popes" have dared to tamper with the Third Commandment by permitting Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to satisfy their Sunday obligation by attending a staging of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo service on Saturday afternoon or evening and to attend such a staging on the afternoon or evening liturgical before one of the few Holy Days of Obligation that have not been moved or whose obligation has not been eliminated as a result of a certain feast falling on a Monday or a Saturday. This has contributed mightily to the descralizing of Sundays as Catholics of all ages get their "obligation" out of the way on Saturday afternoons or evenings in order to have Sundays "free" for the "really important" things in life (football, baseball, golf, boating, sleeping in, watching the Sunday morning and afternoon interview programs, etc.).

The false "popes" have dared to tamper with the Fourth Commandment in a variety of ways, including endorsing the separation of Church and State, a thesis termed absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, thereby eviscerating the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King, and they have undermined the authority of parents to be the principal educators of their children by mandating classroom instruction, much of which is graphic and seeks to mainstream immorality in the name of "compassion" and "dignity," in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in full violation of the following prohibition placed upon such instruction by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:

65. Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers.

66. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.

67. In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:

Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

How do children learn to grow in purity?

By being taught to love God with their whole hearts, minds, bodies, souls, and strength.

By eliminating, as far as is humanly possible, the incentives to sin as found in popular culture (eliminating the television as a starting point, of course), refusing to expose children to the near occasions of sin represented by immodestly dressed relatives or friends, refusing to permit them to associate with playmates whose innocence and purity have been undermined by the culture and by "education" programs that serve in public schools to be instruments of promoting sin and that serve in conciliar schools as the means of justifying it.

By keeping our children close to the Sacraments, which means, of course, getting them out of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and making sure that the family Rosary is prayed every day with fervor and devotion.

Do we need "theft instruction" in order to keep our children from stealing.

Do children, who are naturally curious, have to learn about the various forms of thievery available to them in order to know that it is wrong to violate the Seventh Commandment?

Might such "theft instruction" actually serve as an incentive to the mischievous to steal?

The conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have indeed undermined the Natural Law right of parents to educate their children as they have countenanced the undermining of the innocence and purity of the young.

The conciliar "popes" have dared to undermine the Fifth Commandment in a number of ways, principally by making it appear as though the imposition of the death penalty by the civil state upon malefactors found guilty after due process of law of heinous crimes is an offense against both justice and the "dignity of the human person." A true pope can no more make it appear as though the death penalty is opposed to the Fifth Commandment than he could proclaim that there are four natures and six souls in the Person of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He hath not the power to do such a thing.

Yes, for the conciliar "popes" to be correct about the death penalty, then a true pope, Pope Saint Pius V would have had to have been wrong when he wrote that it should be imposed by the civil state equally upon clerics caught in perverse sins against nature as upon laymen caught in such sins:

That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.

Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery" (chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.

Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss. (Pope Saint Pius V, Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568.)

We are eyewitnesses to "papal" statements and actions that are entirely without precedent in the history of the Catholic Church. There is a reason for this: such statements and actions have not been made by true "popes" as true Successors of Saint Peter, as I have come to learn relatively late to the scene, to be sure, as men who do and say such things cannot be members of the Catholic Church

As noted earlier, each of the “conservative” conciliar “bishops,” including men such as Gerhard “Cardinal” Muller (who just happens to deny Catholic doctrine on the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Transubstantiation), Raymond Leo Burke, Athanasius Schneider, and Walter “Cardinal” Brandmuller accept the new ecclesiology, dogmatic evolutionism (under Ratzinger/Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity”), false ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and prayer services, religious liberty, separation of church and state, and episcopal collegiality. Brandmuller is a supporter of “Pope Benedict XVI’s” writings that are filled with heresy and outright denials of the historicity and reliability of certain passages contained in Sacred Scripture. It is not possible to defend the integrity of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments when one accepts their corruption by means of placing the “good of the spouses” above that of the procreation and education of children, and it is not possible to defend the Catholic Faith by accepting precepts and propositions at variance therewith, starting with offenses against the nature of dogmatic truth and the First and Second Commandments. It is impossible for the Catholic Church to be tainted with slightest trace of error, and those who accept conciliarism’s errors are not members of the Catholic Church even though they may not realize this is true.

Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote this about God the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, in his reflection on Thursday in Whitsun Week in The Liturgical Year:

The divine Spirit has been sent to secure unity to the bride of Christ; and we have seen have faithfully He fulfils His mission by giving to the members of the Church to be one, as He Himself is one. But the bride of a God, who is, as He calls Himself, the truth, must be in the truth, and can have no fellowship with error. Jesus entrusted His teachings to her care, and has instructed her in the person of the apostles. He said to them: 'All things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.' And yet, if left unaided, how can the Church preserve free from all change, during the long ages of her existence, that word which Jesus has not written, that truth which He came from came from heaven to teach her? Experiences proves that everything changes here below; that written documents are open to false interpretations; and that unwritten traditions are frequently so altered in the course of time, as to defy recognition.

Here again we have a proof of our Lord's watchful love. In order to realize the wish He had to see us one, as He and His Father are one, He sent us His Spirit; and in order to keep us in the truth, He sent us this same Spirit who is called the Spirit of truth. 'When the Spirit of truth is come,' said He, 'He will teach you all truth.' And what is the truth which this Spirit will teach us? 'He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.'

So that nothing of what the divine Word spoke to men is to be lost. The beauty of His bride is to be based on truth, for 'beauty' is the splendour of truth.' Her fidelity to her Jesus shall be of the most perfect kind; for if He be the truth, how could she ever be out of the truth? Jesus had said: 'I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever; and He shall be in you.' It is by the Holy Ghost, then, that the Church is ever to possess the truth, and that nothing can rob her of it; for this Spirit, who is sent by the Father and the Son, will abide unceasingly with and in her.

The magnificent theory of St. Augustine comes most appropriately here. According to his teaching--which, after all, is but the explanation of the texts just cited--the Holy Ghost is the principle of the Church's life; and He, being the Spirit of truth, preserves and directs her in the truth, so that both her teaching and her practice cannot be other than expressions of the truth. He makes Himself responsible for her words, just as our spirit is responsible for what our tongue utters. Hence it is that the Church, by her union with the Holy Ghost, is so identified with truth, that the apostle did not hesitate to call her 'the pillar and ground of the truth'. The Christian, therefore, may well rest on the Church in all that regards faith. He knows that the Church is never alone; that she is always with the holy Spirit who lives within her; that her word is not her own, but the word of the Spirit, which is the word of Jesus.

Now, this word of Jesus is preserved in the Church by the Holy Ghost, and in two ways. He guards it as contained in the four Gospels, which the evangelists wrote under His inspiration. It is by His watchful care that these holy writings have been kept free from all changes during the past ages. The same is to be said of the other books of the new Testament, which were also written under the guidance of the same Spirit. Those of the old Testament are equally the result of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost: and, although they do not give us the words spoken by our Saviour during His mortal life, yet do they speak of Him, and foretell His coming, and contain, moreover, the primitive revelations made by God to mankind. The Books of sacred Writ are replete with mysteries, the interpretation of which is communicated to the Church by the Holy Ghost.

The other channel of Jesus' word is tradition. It was impossible for everything to be written; and even before the Gospels were composed, the Church was in existence. Tradition, like the written word itself, is from God; but unless the Spirit of truth watch over and protect it, how can it remain pure and intact? He therefore fixes it in the memory of the Church, He preserves it from any change: it is His mission; and thanks to the fidelity wherewith He fulfils His mission, the Church remains in possession of the whole treasure left her by her Spouse.

But it is not enough that the Church possesses the word, written and traditional: she must also have the understanding of that word, in order that she may explain it to her children. Truth came down from heaven that it might be communicated to men; for it is their light, and without it they would be in darkness, knowing not whither they are going. The Spirit of truth could not, therefore, be satisfied if the word of Jesus were kept as a hidden treasure; no, He will have it thrown open to men, that they may thence draw life to their souls. Consequently, the Church will have to be infallible in her teaching; for how can she be deceived herself, or deceive others, seeing it is the Spirit of truth who guides her in al things and speaks by her mouth? He is her soul; and we have already had St. Augustine telling us that wen the tongue speaks, the soul is responsible.

The infallibility of our holy mother the Church is the direct and immediate result of her having the spirit of truth abiding within her. It is the promise of the presence of the holy Spirit.The man who does not acknowledge the Church to be infallible, should, if he is consistent, admit that the Son of God has not been able to fulfil His promise, and that the Spirit of truth is a Spirit of error. But he that reasons thus, has strayed fro the path of life; he thought he was denying a prerogative to the Church, whereas, in reality, he was refused to believe God Himself. It is this that constitutes the sin of heresy. Want of due reflection may hide the awful conclusion; but the conclusion is strictly implied in his principle. The heretic is at variance with the Holy Ghost, because he is at variance with the Church; he may become once more a living member, by humbly returning to the bride of Christ; but at present he is dead, for the soul is not animating him. Let us again give ear to the great St. Augustine: 'It sometimes happens,' he says, 'that a member--say a hand, or a finger, or foot--is cut from the human body; tell me, does the soul follow the member that is thus severed? As long as it was in the body, it lived; now that it is cut off, it is dead. In the same manner, a Christian is a Catholic so long as he lives in the body (of the Church); cut off, he is a heretic; the Spirit follows not a member that is cut off.

Glory, then, be to the holy Spirit, who has conferred upon the bride the 'splendour of truth!' With regard to ourselves: could we, without incurring the greatest of dangers, put limits to the docility with which we receive the teachings which come to us simultaneously from 'the Spirit and the bride,' who are so indissolubly united? Whether the Church imitates what we are to believe, by showing us her own practice, or by simply expressing her sentiments, or by solemnly pronouncing a definition on the subject, we must receive her word with submission of heart. Her practice is ever in harmony with the truth, ad it is the Holy Ghost, her life-giving principle, that keeps it so; the utterance of her sentiments is but an aspiration of the same Spirit, who never leaves her; and as to the definitions she decrees, it is not she alone that decrees them, but the Holy Ghost who decrees them in and by her. If it be the visible head of the Church who utters the definition, we know that Jesus prayed that peer's faith might never fail, that He obtained it from the Father, and that He gave the Holy Ghost the mission of perpetuating the precious prerogative granted to Peter. If it be the sovereign Pontiff and bishops, assembled in council, who proclaim what is the faith on any given subject, it is the Holy Ghost who speaks by this collective judgment, make truth triumph, and puts error to flight. It tis this divine Spirit that has given to the bride to crush all heresies beneath her feet; it is He that, in all ages, has raised up within her learned men, who have confuted error whensoever or wheresoever it was broached.

So that our beloved mother the Church is gifted with infallibility; she is true, always and in all things; and she is indebted to Him who proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. But there is another glory which she owes to Him. The bride of the thrice holy God could not but be holy. She is so; and it is from the Spirit of holiness that receives her holiness. Truth and holiness are inseparably united in God. Hence it is what our Saviour, who has willed us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and, creatures as we are, would have us take the infinite good as our model, prayed that we might be sanctified in the truth. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Paschal Time Book III: Volume 9, pp. 393-399.)

How much clearer does it have to be for one to understand that was appears to be the Catholic Church is her hideous corruption that is filled with heresies, errors, sin, blasphemy, sacrilege, and numerous acts of apostasy?

For anyone--and I do mean anyone--to think that the Catholic Church can be identified publicly as having anything to do with the welter of heresies and errors that have emanated from her counterfeit ape is to make a total and unabashed mockery of Dom Prosper Gueranger's beautiful summary of the teaching of Saint Augustine of Hippo that is nothing other than a statement of clear and irreftuable Catholic truth:

The magnificent theory of St. Augustine comes most appropriately here. According to his teaching--which, after all, is but the explanation of the texts just cited--the Holy Ghost is the principle of the Church's life; and He, being the Spirit of truth, preserves and directs her in the truth, so that both her teaching and her practice cannot be other than expressions of the truth. He makes Himself responsible for her words, just as our spirit is responsible for what our tongue utters. Hence it is that the Church, by her union with the Holy Ghost, is so identified with truth, that the apostle did not hesitate to call her 'the pillar and ground of the truth'. The Christian, therefore, may well rest on the Church in all that regards faith. He knows that the Church is never alone; that she is always with the holy Spirit who lives within her; that her word is not her own, but the word of the Spirit, which is the word of Jesus. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Paschal Time Book III: Volume 9, pp. 393-399.)

In other words, the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not and can never be the Catholic Church. The counterfeit church of conciliarism is Antichrist’s church of lies and sin.

Here is how the Catholic Church has referred to novelty over the centuries:

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Constantinople III).

These and many other serious things, which at present would take too long to list, but which you know well, cause Our intense grief. It is not enough for Us to deplore these innumerable evils unless We strive to uproot them. We take refuge in your faith and call upon your concern for the salvation of the Catholic flock. Your singular prudence and diligent spirit give Us courage and console Us, afflicted as We are with so many trials. We must raise Our voice and attempt all things lest a wild boar from the woods should destroy the vineyard or wolves kill the flock. It is Our duty to lead the flock only to the food which is healthful. In these evil and dangerous times, the shepherds must never neglect their duty; they must never be so overcome by fear that they abandon the sheep. Let them never neglect the flock and become sluggish from idleness and apathy. Therefore, united in spirit, let us promote our common cause, or more truly the cause of God; let our vigilance be one and our effort united against the common enemies.

Indeed you will accomplish this perfectly if, as the duty of your office demands, you attend to yourselves and to doctrine and meditate on these words: "the universal Church is affected by any and every novelty" and the admonition of Pope Agatho: "nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning." Therefore may the unity which is built upon the See of Peter as on a sure foundation stand firm. May it be for all a wall and a security, a safe port, and a treasury of countless blessings. To check the audacity of those who attempt to infringe upon the rights of this Holy See or to sever the union of the churches with the See of Peter, instill in your people a zealous confidence in the papacy and sincere veneration for it. As St. Cyprian wrote: "He who abandons the See of Peter on which the Church was founded, falsely believes himself to be a part of the Church . . . .

But for the other painful causes We are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces.(Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

7. It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion. They extol it with the highest praise, as if religion itself were not of God but the work of men, or a philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means. The charge which Tertullian justly made against the philosophers of his own time "who brought forward a Stoic and a Platonic and a Dialectical Christianity" can very aptly apply to those men who rave so pitiably. Our holy religion was not invented by human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected by human reason. In order not to be deceived and go astray in a matter of such great importance, human reason should indeed carefully investigate the fact of divine revelation. Having done this, one would be definitely convinced that God has spoken and therefore would show Him rational obedience, as the Apostle very wisely teaches. For who can possibly not know that all faith should be given to the words of God and that it is in the fullest agreement with reason itself to accept and strongly support doctrines which it has determined to have been revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived? (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Pope Saint Pius X went to great lengths in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, to decry the novelties of Modernism, starting in its very first paragraph:

One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking “men speaking perverse things,”1 “vain talkers and seducers,”2 “erring and driving into error.” It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Pope Saint Pius X went on to quote Pope Gregory IX’s own condemnation of novelties:

The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: “Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text…to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science…these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid.” (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Our last true pope to have been canonized instituted a “Council of Vigilance” that he wanted established in every diocese to guard against every use of language that endorsed the precise thing that the conciliar “popes” have praised from their own very lips and in the writings that they have issued in their names, namely, a desire to adapt doctrine to serve the alleged “needs” of “modern men”:

55. But of what avail, Venerable Brethren, will be all Our commands and prescriptions if they be not dutifully and firmly carried out? In order that this may be done it has seemed expedient to us to extend to all dioceses the regulations which the Bishops of Umbria, with great wisdom, laid down for theirs many years ago. “In order,” they say, ”to extirpate the errors already propagated and to prevent their further diffusion, and to remove those teachers of impiety through whom the pernicious effects of such diffusion are being perpetuated, this sacred Assembly, following the example of St. Charles Borromeo, has decided to establish in each of the dioceses a Council consisting of approved members of both branches of the clergy, which shall be charged with the task of noting the existence of errors and the devices by which new ones are introduced and propagated, and to inform the Bishop of the whole, so that he may take counsel with them as to the best means for suppressing the evil at the outset and preventing it spreading for the ruin of souls or, worse still, gaining strength and growth.” We decree, therefore, that in every diocese a council of this kind, which We are pleased to name the “Council of Vigilance,” be instituted without delay. The priests called to form part in it shall be chosen somewhat after the manner above prescribed for the censors, and they shall meet every two months on an appointed day in the presence of the Bishop. They shall be bound to secrecy as to their deliberations and decisions, and in their functions shall be included the following: they shall watch most carefully for every trace and sign of Modernism both in publications and in teaching, and to preserve the clergy and the young from it they shall take all prudent, prompt, and efficacious measures. Let them combat novelties of words, remembering the admonitions of Leo XIII: “It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilization, and many other things of the same kind.” Language of the kind here indicated is not to be tolerated either in books or in lectures. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Why is it that so many “conservative” and “traditionally-minded” Catholics within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism tolerate the constant references that their false “popes” have made to “the introduction of a new order of Christian life,” “new directions of the Church,” “new aspirations of the modern soul,” “a new social vocation of the clergy,” and “a new Christian civilization”?

Do not be concerned about who sees the truth about the state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Family members may not see the truth. Former friends and acquaintances may not see the truth. We cannot ask why such people insist that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the Catholic Church when it is in fact Antichrist’s Church of Lies and Sin. We must simply be grateful to Our Lady for sending us the graces that we need to see the true state of the Church Militant. We must beseech her daily, especially through Most Holy Rosary, entrusting all of the crosses of the present moment as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Christ the King, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, which will triumph in the end.

Seeing the truth does not make us one whit better than anyone else who does not. It is more than possible to see the truth and to lose one’s soul by being arrogantly self-righteous about having done so. We must be meek and humble of heart if we seek to take refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The conclusion of Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on the parable contained in today’s Holy Gospel reading reminds us that the Jews are not the only ones who would lose their salvation if they did not follow Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ until the eleventh hour. We can do so as, unlike Protestantism, the Lutheran strain of which is based upon the Sin of Presumption’s assurance that all one needs to be saved have is make a “profession of faith” in the Name of the Lord in is heart and on his lips, Catholics must understand that their individual salvation is not assured, which is why we must keep working until we receive the call, which can come at the third, sixth, ninth or eleventh hours:

This is the interpretation of our parable given by St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, and by the generality of the holy fathers. But it conveys a second instruction, as we are assured by the two holy doctors just named. It signifies the calling given by God to each of us individually, pressing us to labour, during this life, for the kingdom prepared for us. The morning is our childhood. The third hour, according to the division used by the ancients in counting their day, is sunrise; it is our youth. The sixth hour, by which name they called our midday, is manhood. The eleventh hour, which immediately preceded sunset, is old age. The Master of the house calls His labourers at all these various hours. They must go that very hour. They that are called in the morning may not put off their starting for the vineyard, under pretext of going afterwards, when the Master shall call them later on. Who has told them that they shall live to the eleventh hour? They that are called at the third hour may be dead by the sixth. God will call to the labours of the last hour such as shall be living when that hour comes; but, if we should die at midday, that last call will not avail us. Besides, God has not promised us a second call, if we excuse ourselves from the first. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Volume IV: Septuagesima, p. 1126.)

We must rely upon Our Lady to help us to be ready for the call from her Divine Son whenever it comes, and we must rely upon the graces she sends to us to persevere in the truth no matter what it may cost us in human terms as we continue to pray for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and an end to the nefarious religious sect that dares to call itself the Catholic Church.

Remember, the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end.

May our prayers to Our Lady and our penances and sacrifices during this coming Lent help to plant a few seeds for the manifestation of this triumph.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, pray for us.

Saint Simeon, pray for us.

Sant Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Appendix A

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori: On Impurity

THE man who indulges in impurity is like a person labouring under the dropsy. The latter is so much tormented by thirst, that the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes. Such, too, is the nature of the accursed vice of impurity; it is never satiated. "As," says St. Thomas of Villanova, “the more the dropsical man abounds in moisture, the more he thirsts; so, too, is it with the waves of eternal pleasures." I will speak Today of the vice of impurity, and will show, in the first point, the delusion of those who say that this vice is but a small evil; and, in the second, the delusion of those who say, that God takes pity on this sin, and that he does not punish it.

First Point. Delusion of those who say that sins against purity are not a great evil.

1. The unchaste, then, say that sins contrary to purity are but a small evil. Like “the so wallowing in the mire" ("Sus lota in volutabro luti” 2 Pet. ii. 22) , they are immersed in their own filth, so that they do not see the malice of their actions; and therefore they neither feel nor abhor the stench of their impurities, which excite disgust and horror in all others. Can you, who say that the vice of impurity is but a small evil can you, I ask, deny that it is a mortal sin? If you deny it, you are a heretic; for as St. Paul says: "Do not err. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, etc., shall possess the kingdom of God." (1 or. vi. 9.) It is a mortal sin; it cannot be a small evil. It is more sinful than theft, or detraction, or the violation of the fast. How then can you say that it is not a great evil? Perhaps mortal sin appears to you to be a small evil? Is it a small evil to despise the grace of God, to turn your back upon him, and to lose his friendship, for a transitory, beastly pleasure?

2. St. Thomas teaches, that mortal sin, because it is an insult offered to an infinite God, contains a certain infinitude of malice. "A sin committed against God has a certain infinitude, on account of the infinitude of the Divine Majesty." (S. Thom., 3, p., q. 1, art. 2, ad. 2.) Is mortal sin a small evil? It is so great an evil, that if all the angels and all the saints, the apostles, martyrs, and even the Mother of God, offered all their merits to atone for a single mortal sin, the oblation would not be sufficient. No; for that atonement or satisfaction would be finite; but the debt contracted by mortal sin is infinite, on account of the infinite Majesty of God which has been offended. The hatred which God bears to sins against purity is great beyond measure. If a lady find her plate soiled she is disgusted, and cannot eat. Now, with what disgust and indignation must God, who is Purity itself, behold the filthy impurities by which his law is violated? He loves purity with an infinite love; and consequently he has an infinite hatred for the sensuality which the lewd, voluptuous man calls a small evil. Even the devils who held a high rank in heaven before their fall disdain to tempt men to sins of the flesh.

3. St. Thomas says (lib. 5, de Erud. Princ., c. li.), that Lucifer, who is supposed to have been the devil that tempted Jesus Christ in the desert, tempted him to commit other sins, but scorned to tempt him to offend against chastity. Is this sin a small evil? Is it, then, a small evil to see a man endowed with a rational soul, and enriched with so many divine graces, bring himself by the sin of impurity to the level of a brute?” Fornication and pleasure," says St. Jerome,” pervert the understanding, and change men into beasts." (In Oseam., c. iv.) In the voluptuous and unchaste are literally verified the words of David;” And man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them." (Ps. xlviii. 13.) St. Jerome says, that there is nothing more vile or degrading than to allow oneself to be conquered by the flesh. ” Nihil vilius quam vinci a carne." Is it a small evil to forget God, and to banish him from the soul, for the sake of giving the body a vile satisfaction, of which, when it is over, you feel ashamed? Of this the Lord complains by the Prophet Ezechiel;” Thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten me, and has cast me off behind thy back” (xxiii. 35.) St. Thomas says, that by every vice, but particularly by the vice of impurity, men are removed far from God. “Per luxuriant maxime recedit a Deo." (In Job cap. xxxi.)

4. Moreover, sins of impurity, on account of their great number, are an immense evil. A blasphemer does not always blaspheme, but only when he is drunk or provoked to anger. The assassin, whose trade is to murder others, does not, at the most, commit more than eight or ten homicides. But the unchaste are guilty of an unceasing torrent of sins, by thoughts, by words, by looks, by complacencies, and by touches; so that, when they go to confession they find it impossible to tell the number of the sins they have committed against purity. Even in their sleep the devil represents to them obscene objects, that, on awakening, they may take delight in them; and because they are made the slaves of the enemy, they obey and consent to his suggestions; for it is easy to contract a habit of this sin. To other sins, such as blasphemy, detraction, and murder, men are not prone; but to this vice nature inclines them. Hence St. Thomas says, that there is no sinner so ready to offend God as the votary of lust is, on every occasion that occurs to him.” Nullus ad Dei contemptum promptior." The sin of impurity brings in its train the sins of defamation, of theft, hatred, and of boasting of its own filthy abominations. Besides, it ordinarily involves the malice of scandal. Other sins, such as blasphemy, perjury, and murder, excite horror in those who witness them; but this sin excites and draws others, who are flesh, to commit it, or, at least, to commit it with less horror.

5. “Totum hominem," says St. Cyprian,” agit in triumphum libidinis." (Lib. de bono pudic.) By lust the evil triumphs over the entire man, over his body and over his soul; over his memory, filling it with the remembrance of unchaste delights, in order to make him take complacency in them; over his intellect, to make him desire occasions of committing sin; over the will, by making it love its impurities as his last end, and as if there were no God. "I made," said Job, “a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what part should God from above have in me?" (xxxi. 1, 2.) Job was afraid to look at a virgin, because he knew that if he consented to a bad thought God should have no part in him. According to St. Gregory, from impurity arises blindness of understanding, destruction, hatred of God, and despair of eternal life.” De luxuria cœcitas mentis præcipitatio, odium Dei, desperatio futuri sæculi generantur." (S. Greg., Mor., lib. 13.) St. Augustine says, though the unchaste may grow old, the vice of impurity does not grow old in them. Hence St. Thomas says, that there is no sin in which the devil delights so much as in this sin; because there is no other sin to which nature clings with so much tenacity. To the vice of impurity it adheres so firmly, that the appetite for carnal pleasures becomes insatiable.” Diabolus dicitur gaudere maxime de peccato luxuriæ, quia est maximæ adhœrentia: et difficile ab eo homo eripi potest; insatiabilis est enim delectabilis appetitus." (1, 2, qu. 73, a. 5, ad. 2.) Go now, and say that the sin of impurity is but a small evil. At the hour of death you shall not say so; every sin of that kind shall then appear to you a monster of hell. Much less shall you say so before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, who will tell you what the Apostle has already told you: "No fornicator, or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." (Eph. v. 5.) The man who has lived like a brute does not deserve to sit with the angels.

6. Most beloved brethren, let us continue to pray to God to deliver us from this vice: if we do not, we shall lose our souls. The sin of impurity brings with it blindness and obstinacy. Every vice produces darkness of understanding; but impurity produces it in a greater degree than all other sins.” Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding." (Osee iv. 11.) Wine deprives us of understanding and reason; so does impurity. Hence St. Thomas says, that the man who indulges in unchaste pleasures, does not live according to reason.” In nullo procedit secundum judicium rationis." Now, if the unchaste are deprived of light, and no longer see the evil which they do, how can they abhor it and amend their lives? The Prophet Osee says, that being blinded by their own mire, they do not even think of returning to God; because their impurities take away from them all knowledge of God.” They will not set their thought to return to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord." (Osee v. 4.) Hence St. Lawrence Justinian writes, that this sin makes men forget God.” Delights of the flesh induced forgetfulness of God." And St. John Damascene teaches that “the carnal man cannot look at the light of truth." Thus, the lewd and voluptuous no longer understand what is meant by the grace of God, by judgment, hell, and eternity.” Fire hath fallen upon them, and they shall not see the sun." (Ps. Ivii. 9.) Some of these blind miscreants go so far as to say, that fornication is not in itself sinful. They say, that it was not forbidden in the Old Law; and in support of this execrable doctrine they adduce the words of the Lord to Osee: “Go, take thee a wife of fornication, and have of her children of fornication." (Osee i. 2.) In answer I say, that God did not permit Osee to commit fornication; but wished him to take for his wife a woman who had been guilty of fornication: and the children of this marriage were called children of fornication, because the mother had been guilty of that crime. This is, according to St. Jerome, the meaning of the words of the Lord to Osee.” Ideirco," says the holy doctor, “Fornicationis appelandi sunt filii, quod sunt de meretrice generati." But fornication was always forbidden, under pain of mortal sin, in the Old, as well as in the New Law. St. Paul says: “No fornicator or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." (Eph. v. 5.) Behold the impiety to which the blindness of such sinners carry them! From this blindness it arises, that though they go to the sacraments, their confessions are null for want of true contrition; for how is it possible for them to have true sorrow, when they neither know nor abhor their sins?

7. The vice of impurity also brings with it obstinacy. To conquer temptations, particularly against chastity, continual prayer is necessary.” Watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." (Mark xiv. 38.) But how will the unchaste, who are always seeking to be tempted, pray to God to deliver them from temptation? They sometimes, as St. Augustine confessed of himself, even abstain from prayer, through fear of being heard and cured of the disease, which they wish to continue. "I feared," said the saint, "that you would soon hear and heal the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to be satiated, rather than extinguished." (Conf., lib. 8, cap. vii.) St. Peter calls this vice an unceasing sin.” Having eyes full of adultery and sin that ceaseth not." (2 Pet. ii. 14.) Impurity is called an unceasing sin on account of the obstinacy which it induces. Some person addicted to this vice says: I always confess the sin. So much the worse; for since you always relapse into sin, these confessions serve to make you persevere in the sin. The fear of punishment is diminished by saying: I always confess the sin. If you felt that this sin certainly merits hell, you would scarcely say: I will not give it up; I do not care if I am damned. But the devil deceives you. Commit this sin, he says; for you afterwards confess it. But, to make a good confession of your sins, you must have true sorrow of the heart, and a firm purpose to sin no more. Where are this sorrow and this firm purpose of amendment, when you always return to the vomit? If you had had these dispositions, and had received sanctifying grace at your confessions, you should not have relapsed, or at least you should have abstained for a considerable time from relapsing. You have always fallen back into sin in eight or ten days, and perhaps in a shorter time, after confession. What sign is this? It is a sign that you were always in enmity with God. If a sick man instantly vomits the medicine which he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable.

8. St. Jerome says, that the vice of impurity, when habitual, will cease when the unhappy man who indulges in it is cast into the fire of hell. “Infernal fire, lust, whose fuel is gluttony, whose sparks are brief conversations, whose end is hell." The unchaste become like the vulture that waits to be killed by the fowler, rather than abandon the rottenness of the dead bodies on which it feeds. This is what happened to a young female, who, after having lived in the habit of sin with a young man, fell sick, and appeared to be converted. At the hour of death she asked leave of her confessor to send for the young man, in order to exhort him to change his life at the sight of her death. The confessor very imprudently gave the permission, and taught her what she should say to her accomplice in sin. But listen to what happened. As soon as she saw him, she forgot her promise to the confessor and the exhortation she was to give to the young man. And what did she do? She raised herself up, sat in bed, stretched her arms to him, and said: Friend, I have always loved you, and even now, at the end of my life, I love you: I see that, on your account, I shall go to hell: but I do not care: I am willing, for the love of you, to be damned. After these words she fell back on the bed and expired. These facts are related by Father Segneri (Christ. Istr. Bag., xxiv., n. 10.) Oh! how difficult is it for a person who has contracted a habit of this vice, to amend his life and return sincerely to God! O how difficult is it for him not to terminate this habit in hell, like the unfortunate young woman of whom I have just spoken.

Second Point. Illusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin.

9. The votaries of lust say that God takes pity on this sin; but such is not the language of St. Thomas of Villanova. He says, that in the sacred Scriptures we do not read of any sin so severely chastised as the sin of impurity.” Luxuriæ facinus præ aliis punitum legimus." (Serm. iv., Dom. 1, Quadrag.) We find in the Scriptures, that in punishment of this sin, a deluge of fire descended from heaven on four cities, and, in an instant, consumed not only the inhabitants, but even the very stones." And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities, and all things that spring from the earth." (Gen. xix. 24.) St. Peter Damian relates, that a man and a woman who had sinned against impurity, were found burnt and black as a cinder.

10. Salvian writes, that it was in punishment of the sin of impurity that God sent on the earth the universal deluge, which was caused by continued rain for forty days and forty nights. In this deluge the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains; and only eight persons along with Noah were saved in the ark. The rest of the inhabitants of the earth, who were more numerous then than at present, were punished with death in chastisement of the vice of impurity. Mark the words of the Lord in speaking of this chastisement which he inflicted on that sin: “My spirit shall not remain in man for ever; because he is flesh." (Gen. vi. 3.) "That is," says Liranus, "too deeply involved in carnal sins." The Lord added: “For it repenteth me that I made man." (Gen. vi. 7.) The indignation of God is not like ours, which clouds the mind, and drives us into excesses: his wrath is a judgment perfectly just and tranquil, by which God punishes and repairs the disorders of sin. But to make us understand the intensity of his hatred for the sin of impurity, he represents himself as if sorry for having created man, who offended him so grievously by this vice. We, at the present day, see more severe temporal punishment inflicted on this than on any other sin. Go into the hospitals, and listen to the shrieks of so many young men, who, in punishment of their impurities, are obliged to submit to the severest treatment and to the most painful operations, and who, if they escape death, are, according to the divine threat, feeble, and subject to the most excruciating pain for the remainder of their lives. “Thou hast cast me off behind thy back; bear thou also thy wickedness and thy fornications." (Ezec. xxiii. 35.)

11. St. Remigius writes that, if children.be excepted, the number of adults that are saved is few, on account of the sins of the flesh.” Exceptis parvulis ex adultis propter vitiam carnis pauci salvantur." (Apud S. Cypr. de bono pudic.) In conformity with this doctrine, it was revealed to a holy soul, that as pride has filled hell with devils, so impurity fills it with men. (Col., disp. ix., ex. 192.) St. Isidore assigns the reason. He says that there is no vice which so much enslaves men to the devil as impurity.” Magis per luxuriam, humanum genus subditur diabolo, quam per aliquod aliud." (S. Isid., lib. 2, c. xxxix.) Hence, St. Augustine says, that with regard to this sin,” the combat is common and the victory rare." Hence it is, that on account of this sin hell is filled with souls.

12. All that I have said on this subject has been said, not that anyone present, who has been addicted to the vice of impurity, may be driven to despair, but that such persons may be cured. Let us, then, come to the remedies. These are two great remedies prayer, and the flight of dangerous occasions.

Prayer, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the safeguard of chastity." Oratio pudicitiæ præsidium et tutamen est." (De Orat.) And before him, Solomon, speaking of himself, said the same. "And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it... I went to the Lord, and besought him." (Wis. viii. 21.) Thus, it is impossible for us to conquer this vice without God’s assistance. Hence, as soon as temptation against chastity presents itself, the remedy is, to turn instantly to God for help, and to repeat several times the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, which have a special virtue to banish bad thoughts of that kind. I have said immediately, without listening to, or beginning to argue with the temptation. When a bad thought occurs to the mind, it is necessary to shake it off instantly, as you would a spark that flies from the fire, and instantly to invoke aid from Jesus and Mary.

13. As to the flight of dangerous occasions, St. Philip Neri used to say that cowards that is, they who fly from the occasions gain the victory. Hence you must, in the first place, keep a restraint on the eyes, and must abstain from looking at young females. Otherwise, says St. Thomas, you can scarcely avoid the sin.” Luxuria vitari vix protest nisi vitatur aspectus mulieris pulchræ." (S. Thom. 1, 2, qu. 167, a. 2.) Hence Job said:” I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (xxxi. 1). He was afraid to look at a virgin; because from looks it is easy to pass to desires, and from desires to acts. St. Francis de Sales used to say, that to look at a woman does not do so much evil as to look at her a second time. If the devil has not gained a victory the first, he will gain the second time. And if it be necessary to abstain from looking at females, it is much more necessary to avoid conversation with them. "Tarry not among women." (Eccl. xlii. 12.) We should be persuaded that, in avoiding occasions of this sin, no caution can be too great. Hence we must be always fearful, and fly from them.” A wise man feareth and declineth from evil; a fool is confident." (Prov. xiv. 16.) A wise man is timid, and flies away; a fool is confident, and falls.

Appendix B

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori's Full Sermon on the Vice of Speaking Immodestly

SERMON XL. ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. - ON THE VICE OF SPEAKING IMMODESTLY.

"He touched his tongue, .... and the string of his tongue was loosed." MARK vii. 33, 35.

IN this day’s gospel St. Mark relates the miracle which our Saviour wrought in healing the man that was dumb by barely touching his tongue. "He touched his tongue and the string of his tongue was loosed." From. the last words we may infer that the man was not entirely dumb, but that his tongue was not free, or that his articulation was not distinct. Hence St. Mark tells us, that after the miracle he spoke right. Let us make the application to ourselves. The dumb man stood in need of a miracle to loose his tongue, and to take away the impediment under which he laboured. But how many are there on whom God would confer a great grace, if he bound their tongues, that they might cease to speak immodestly! This vice does great injury to others. Secondly, it does great injury to themselves. These shall be the two points of this sermon.

First Point. The man who speaks immodestly does great injury to others who listen to him.

1. In explaining the 140th Psalm, St. Augustine calls those who speak obscenely “the mediators of Satan," the ministers of Lucifer; because, by their obscene language, the demon of impurity gets access to souls, which by his own suggestions he could not enter. Of their accursed tongues St. James says: "And the tongue is a fire,... being set on fire by hell." (James iii. 6.) He says that the tongue is a fire kindled by hell, with which they who speak obscenely burn themselves and others. The obscene tongue may be said to be the tongue of the third person, of which Ecclesiasticus says: ”The tongue of a third person hath disquieted many, and scattered them from nation to nation." (Eccl. xxviii. 16.) The spiritual tongue speaks of God, the worldly tongue talks of worldly affairs; but the tongue of a third person is a tongue of hell, which speaks of the impurities of the flesh; and this is the tongue that perverts many, and brings them to perdition.

2. Speaking of the life of men on this earth, the Royal Prophet says: "Let their way become dark and slippery." (Ps. xxxiv. 0.) In this life men walk in the midst of darkness and in a slippery way. Hence they are in danger of falling at every step, unless they cautiously examine the road on which they walk, and carefully avoid dangerous steps that is, the occasions of sin. Now, if in treading this slippery way, frequent efforts were made to throw them down, would it not be a miracle if they did not fall? "The Mediators of Satan," who speak obscenely, impel others to sin, who, as long as they live on this earth, walk in the midst of darkness, and as long as they remain in the flesh, are in danger of falling into the vice of impurity. Now, of those who indulge in obscene language, it has been well said: ”Their throat is an open sepulchre." (Ps. v. 11.) The mouths of those who can utter nothing but filthy obscenities are, according to St. Chrysostom, so many open sepulchres of putrified carcasses. ”Talia sunt ora hominum qui turpia proferunt." (Hom, ii., de Proph. Obs.) The exhalation which arises from the rottenness of a multitude of dead bodies thrown together into a pit, communicates infection and disease to all who feel the stench.

3. ”The stroke of a whip," says Ecclesiasticus, "maketh a blue mark; but the stroke of a tongue will break the bones." (Eccl. xxviii. 21.) The wounds of the lash are wounds of the flesh, but the wounds of the obscene tongue are wounds which infect the bones of those who listen to its language. St. Bernardino of Sienna relates, that a virgin who led a holy life, at hearing an obscene word from a young man, fell into a bad thought, and afterwards abandoned herself to the vice of impurity to such a degree that, the saint says, if the devil had taken human flesh, he could not have committed so many sins of that kind as she committed.

4. The misfortune is, that the mouths of hell that frequently utter immodest words, regard them, as trifles, and are careless about confessing them: and when rebuked for them they answer: ”I say these words in jest, and without malice." In jest! Unhappy man, these jests make the devil laugh, and shall make you weep for eternity in hell. In the first place, it is useless to say that you utter such words without malice; for, when you use such expressions, it is very difficult for you to abstain from acts against purity. According to St. Jerome, ”He that delights in words is not far from the act. ” Besides, immodest words spoken before persons of a different sex, are always accompanied with sinful complacency. And is not the scandal you give to others criminal? Utter a single obscene word, and you shall bring into sin all who listen to you. Such is the doctrine of St. Bernard. ”One speaks, and he utters only one word; but he kills the souls of a multitude of hearers." (Serm. xxiv., in Cant.) A greater sin than if, by one discharge of a blunderbuss, you murdered many persons; because you would then only kill their bodies: but, by speaking obscenely, you have killed their souls.

5. In a word, obscene tongues are the ruin of the world. One of them does more mischief than a hundred devils; because it is the cause of the perdition of many souls. This is not my language; it is the language of the Holy Ghost. ”A slippery mouth worketh ruin." (Prov. xxvi. 28.) And when is it that this havoc of souls is effected, and that such grievous insults are offered to God? It is in the summer, at the time when God bestows upon you the greatest temporal blessings. It is then that he supplies you for the entire year with corn, wine, oil, and other fruits of the earth. It is then that there are as many sins committed by obscene words, as there are grains of corn or bunches of grapes. O ingratitude! How does God bear with us? And who is the cause of these sins? They who speak immodestly are the cause of them. Hence they must render an account to God, and shall be punished for all the sins committed by those who hear them. "But I will require his blood at thy hand." (Ezec. iii. 11.) But let us pass to the second point.

Second Point. He who speaks immodestly does great injury to himself.

6. Some young men say: ”I speak without malice." In answer to this excuse, I have already said, in the first point, that it is very difficult to use immodest language without taking delight in it; and that speaking obscenely before young females, married or unmarried, is always accompanied with a secret complacency in what is said. Besides, by using immodest language, you expose yourself to the proximate danger of falling into unchaste actions: for, according to St. Jerome, as we have already said, ”he who delights in words is not far from the act." All men are inclined to evil. "The imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil." (Gen. viii. 21.) But, above all, men are prone to the sin of impurity, to which nature itself inclines them. Hence St. Augustine has said, that in struggling against that vice”the victory is rare," at least for those who do not use great caution. ”Communis pugna et rara victoria." Now, the impure objects of which they speak are always presented to the mind of those who freely utter obscene words. These objects excite pleasure, and bring them into sinful desires and morose delectations, and afterwards into criminal acts. Behold the consequence of the immodest words which young men say they speak without malice.

7. "Be not taken in thy tongue," says the Holy Ghost. (Eccl. v. 16.) Beware lest by your tongue you forge a chain which will drag you to hell. ”The tongue," says St. James, ”defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity." (St. James iii. 6.) The tongue is one of the members of the body, but when it utters bad words it infects the whole body, and "inflames the wheels of our nativity ;" it inflames and corrupts our entire life from our birth to old age. Hence we see that men who indulge in obscenity, cannot, even in old age, abstain from immodest language. In the life of St. Valerius, Surius relates that the saint, in travelling, went one day into a house to warm himself. He heard the master of the house and a judge of the district, though both were advanced in years, speaking on obscene subjects. The saint reproved them severely; but they paid no attention to his rebuke. However, God punished both of them: one became blind, and a sore broke out on the other, which produced deadly spasms. Henry Gragerman relates (in Magn. Spec., dist. 9, ex. 58), that one of those obscene talkers died suddenly and without repentance, and that he was afterwards seen in hell tearing his tongue in pieces; and when it was restored he began again to lacerate it.

8. But how can God have mercy on him who has no pity on the souls of his neighbours?”Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy." (St. James ii. 13.) Oh! what a pity to see one of those obscene wretches pouring out his filthy expressions before girls and young married females! The greater the number of such persons present, the more abominable is his language. It often happens that little boys and girls are present, and he has no horror of scandalizing these innocent souls! Cantipratano relates that the son of a certain nobleman in Burgundy was sent to be educated by the monks of Cluni. He was an angel of purity; but the unhappy boy having one day entered into a carpenter’s shop, heard some obscene words spoken by the carpenter’s wile, fell into sin, and lost the divine grace. Father Sabitano, in his work entitled”Evangelical Light," relates that another boy, fifteen years old, having heard an immodest word, began to think of it the following night, consented to a bad thought, and died suddenly the same night. His confessor having heard of his death, intended to say Mass for him. But the soul of the unfortunate boy appeared to him, and told the confessor not to celebrate Mass for him that, by means of the word he had heard, he was damned and that the celebration of Mass would add to his pains. O God! how great, were it in their power to weep, would be the wailing of the angel-guardians of these poor children that are scandalized and brought to hell by the language of obscene tongues! With what earnestness shall the angels demand vengeance from God against the author of such scandals! That the angels shall cry for vengeance against them, appears from the words of Jesus Christ: ”See that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father." (Matt, xviii. 10.)

9. Be attentive, then, my brethren, and guard your selves against speaking immodestly, more than you would against death. Listen to the advice of the Holy Ghost: ”Make a balance for thy words, and a just bridle for thy mouth; and take heed lest thou slip with thy tongue and thy fall be incurable unto death." (Eccl. xxvhi. 29, 30.)”Make a balance" you must weigh your words before you utter them and”a bridle for thy mouth" when immodest words come to the tongue, you must suppress them; otherwise, by uttering them, you shall inflict on your own soul, and on the souls of others, a mortal and incurable wound. God has given you the tongue, not to offend him, but to praise and bless him. ”But, ” says St. Paul, “fornication and all uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints." (Ephes. v. 3.) Mark the words”all uncleanness. ” We must not only abstain from obscene language and from every word of double meaning spoken in jest, but also from every improper word unbecoming a saint that is, a Christian. It is necessary to remark, that words of double meaning sometimes do greater evil than open obscenity, because the art with which they are spoken makes a deeper impression on, the mind.

10. Reflect, says St. Augustine, that your mouths are the mouths of Christians, which Jesus Christ has so often entered in the holy communion. Hence, you ought to have a horror of uttering all unchaste words, which are a diabolical poison. ”See, brethren, if it be just that, from the mouths of Christians, which the body of Christ enters, an immodest song, like diabolical poison, should proceed." (Serm. xv., de Temp.) St. Paul says, that the language of a Christian should be always seasoned with salt. ”Let your speech be always in grace, seasoned with salt. ”(Col. iv. 6.) Our conversation should be seasoned with words calculated to excite others not to offend, but to love God. ”Happy the tongue," says St. Bernard, ”that knows only how to speak of holy things!" Happy the tongue that knows only how to speak of God! brethren, be careful not only to abstain from all obscene language, but to avoid, as you would a plague, those who speak immodestly. When you hear any one begin to utter obscene words, follow the advice of the Holy Ghost: ”Hedge in thy ears with thorns: hear not a wicked tongue." (Eccl. xxviii. 28.) "Hedge in thy ears with thorns" that is, reprove with zeal the man who speaks obscenely; at least turn away your face, and show that you hate such language. Let us not be ashamed to appear to be followers of Jesus Christ, unless we wish Jesus Christ to be ashamed to bring us with him into Paradise. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Sermons for Sunday, pp. 169-172; the audio recording of this sermon can be accessed at: Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost: On The Vice Of Speaking Immodestly, 17 Minutes.)

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